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The MTCC has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) of space, and is home to the 1330-seat John Bassett Theatre. To the east end of the complex is the 586-room InterContinental Toronto Centre hotel (formerly Canadian National Railway's L'Hotel CN).[4] At the west end of the complex is a 265,000 square foot Class-B office building.[5] Within the office building is the Baton Rouge restaurant, which was formerly a Planet Hollywood from 1996 to 2006. A south building containing exhibition space is located south of the rail lines, on Bremner Boulevard.

The centre is connected to the Union Station railway and transit station through the SkyWalk, and is also accessible via the underground PATH system. The centre is also connected by the Skywalk system to the nearby Rogers Centre and large conventions or exhibitions will sometimes also use it as an additional venue.

The site was formerly federally owned Railway Lands. Prior to the early 1980s the site was home to tail end tracks and a parking lot. During the 1970s the site was part of the proposed and failed "Metro Centre" development which sought to convert the large rail lands in one large development. Development instead proceeded in parcel-by-parcel fashion, with developments such as Roy Thomson Hall, the CN Tower and the SkyDome stadium. The rail yards were transferred to new locations north and east of Toronto. The main rail lines south of the Centre were retained.

The convention centre and hotel was completed in 1984, built by CN Real Estate designed by Architects Crang and Boake. In 1995, ownership was transferred to Canada Lands Corporation, an agency of the Government of Canada. A new largely underground addition, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects, was added south of the railways, east of the CN Tower in 1997 to expand convention space. In April 2011, the Canada Lands Corporation announced that the centre and hotel was for sale. OMERS-owned Oxford Properties won the rights to the complex in August 2011.[6] The purchase of the North Building, the hotel, the 277 Front Street West office building and a 1,200 stall parking facility was completed in September 2011 for $238 million.[7] The complex was adjacent to other Oxford-owned properties at 315 and 325 Front Street.[5]

In October 2012, Oxford Properties proposed the re-development of the site with an updated convention centre, casino, hotel and retail complex.[8] The current MTCC complex would be demolished and replaced with a new complex.

According to an August 2012 statement of the convention centre corporation, the centre has held 15,000 events and had 40 million visitors since opening in 1984. Direct spending by related to conventions and exhibitions is estimated at $4.7 billion since opening, and $523.7 million in the 2011–12 financial year of the centre.[9]